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Meet Ginetta’s LMP3 racer

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Lawrence Tomlinson is the boss of Brit sports car firm Ginetta. He is also a man, and like any good, rational man, he likes a good, rational V8. Like the one in the pictures above.

It’s the first render of his company’s upcoming LMP3 contender for the 2015 European and Asian Le Mans Series.

LMP3, you ask? It was only recently that the ACO - they’re the Le Mans organisers - announced a new class aimed at young and gentlemen drivers around a strict set of regulations, as a sort of stepping stone into the prototype ranks of LMP2 and the big guns in LMP1.

There’s a cost cap in LMP3 too, in terms of parts, support and personnel, so it’s the perfect formula to hone your enduro-racing skills.

This Ginetta-Juno LMP3 car then - Juno is a specialist in building sports prototypes recently purchased by Ginetta - will be raced by Ginetta boss Tomlinson, himself a former champ at Le Mans in 2006 (he won the GT2 class in a Panoz-Esperante in 2006). Inside the bright hue sits a 420bhp, ‘regulation’ V8 engine as per the regs, though the final aero, styling and chassis work is still underway.

The big plan is for Tomlinson to make a return to La Sarthe. “Le Mans holds a special place in my heart,” he says, “and it is with great pleasure I can achieve my goal of taking Ginetta-Juno into ELMS and ALMS, with a broader plan of competing in a Ginetta at the Le Mans 24hrs.”

Juno founder and Ginetta tech director Ewan Baldry reckons his prototype will be a little stormer, too. “We are very confident the Ginetta-Juno LMP3 car will be a force to be reckoned with,” he says.

Oh, and if you needed any more pedigree, Tomlinson was earlier this week appointed to the British Racing Driver’s Club board of directors, proposed by none other than Nigel Mansell and seconded by Damon Hill.

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